Recently got accepted to Illinois with 15k/year (no stipulations, i'm out of state and will try to attain in-state but obviously it's not guaranteed). The school seems great, even though it wasn't a school I was attracted to initially.

Got accepted to St. John's with a full tuition scholarship (top 40% to maintain all, can maintain half if top 55%). This is an amazing offer and I feel like attending any other school from 50-100 and paying doesn't make much sense.

OP - I would go with Illinois. Taking out loans is a hard thing to do, ite. However, this is your professional degree and the fact that Illinois will open so many more doors than St. Johns is reason enough to go ahead and attend.

Also, wait and see what else you get from other schools. I know you mentioned thinking it would come down to Illinois and St. Johns, but you might find a nice medium where you get a more substantial scholarship AND have no stipulations.

Thanks for all your opinions! I am definitely going to see what I get from other schools and weight my options. At this point, Illinois is the highest ranked school I've gotten into, and although I'm waiting on ND, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get in. I'm from the northeast and frankly, Illinois doesn't have much of a reputation around here. Is that different in the Midwest? My current debt coming of Illinois would be approx 160,000, St. John's 90,000. I'm not super debt averse, but reading all the articles about foolish law students taking out tons of cash to finance their J.D. makes me more determined not to be one of them. I also want to make sure that the extra money is worth it. Are the additional opportunities at Illinois worth it? Thanks again!

TracyLynn wrote:Thanks for all your opinions! I am definitely going to see what I get from other schools and weight my options. At this point, Illinois is the highest ranked school I've gotten into, and although I'm waiting on ND, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get in. I'm from the northeast and frankly, Illinois doesn't have much of a reputation around here. Is that different in the Midwest? My current debt coming of Illinois would be approx 160,000, St. John's 90,000. I'm not super debt averse, but reading all the articles about foolish law students taking out tons of cash to finance their J.D. makes me more determined not to be one of them. I also want to make sure that the extra money is worth it. Are the additional opportunities at Illinois worth it? Thanks again!

I honestly think the opportunities at Illinois would be worth it. Rankings aren't the end-all be-all, but there is a significance in the quality between a school ranked at 21 and a school ranked 72, IMO.

Where do you want to work? What are your career goals? Besides the money aspect, is there any other part of St. John's that really appeals to you? Same with Illinois.

Tagged, I'm in a similar position, I got almost a full ride to Chapman and 10K at Illinois... I want to practice in LA.... I'm so torn! Close to no debt (with 3.0 stips on scholarship though), or OOS tuition at a higher ranked school with 10K unconditional.

TracyLynn wrote:Thanks for all your opinions! I am definitely going to see what I get from other schools and weight my options. At this point, Illinois is the highest ranked school I've gotten into, and although I'm waiting on ND, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get in. I'm from the northeast and frankly, Illinois doesn't have much of a reputation around here. Is that different in the Midwest? My current debt coming of Illinois would be approx 160,000, St. John's 90,000. I'm not super debt averse, but reading all the articles about foolish law students taking out tons of cash to finance their J.D. makes me more determined not to be one of them. I also want to make sure that the extra money is worth it. Are the additional opportunities at Illinois worth it? Thanks again!

I honestly think the opportunities at Illinois would be worth it. Rankings aren't the end-all be-all, but there is a significance in the quality between a school ranked at 21 and a school ranked 72, IMO.

Where do you want to work? What are your career goals? Besides the money aspect, is there any other part of St. John's that really appeals to you? Same with Illinois.

I agree that Illinois is a school of much higher quality. I like the Northeast, but am not opposed to the Midwest. In terms of career goals, prob not big law. Thinking about public interest/criminal... still unsure at this point. Besides the money, St. John's location is probably the biggest appeal to me. If was located somewhere else, I wouldn't be interested. I love NYC and have a lot of friends in the area. Other than that, they have some interesting programs. Illinois just has a great vibe. A lot of programs I'm interested in and a great track record in Chicago. I will be making visits soon so hopefully I can come away with more to help me make my decision.

TracyLynn wrote:Thanks for all your opinions! I am definitely going to see what I get from other schools and weight my options. At this point, Illinois is the highest ranked school I've gotten into, and although I'm waiting on ND, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get in. I'm from the northeast and frankly, Illinois doesn't have much of a reputation around here. Is that different in the Midwest? My current debt coming of Illinois would be approx 160,000, St. John's 90,000. I'm not super debt averse, but reading all the articles about foolish law students taking out tons of cash to finance their J.D. makes me more determined not to be one of them. I also want to make sure that the extra money is worth it. Are the additional opportunities at Illinois worth it? Thanks again!

I honestly think the opportunities at Illinois would be worth it. Rankings aren't the end-all be-all, but there is a significance in the quality between a school ranked at 21 and a school ranked 72, IMO.

Where do you want to work? What are your career goals? Besides the money aspect, is there any other part of St. John's that really appeals to you? Same with Illinois.

I agree that Illinois is a school of much higher quality. I like the Northeast, but am not opposed to the Midwest. In terms of career goals, prob not big law. Thinking about public interest/criminal... still unsure at this point. Besides the money, St. John's location is probably the biggest appeal to me. If was located somewhere else, I wouldn't be interested. I love NYC and have a lot of friends in the area. Other than that, they have some interesting programs. Illinois just has a great vibe. A lot of programs I'm interested in and a great track record in Chicago. I will be making visits soon so hopefully I can come away with more to help me make my decision.

If you get a chance to travel, visit Chicago (or ask any friends that live there about the city), get the visitor's bureau brochure, ask around, do some digging on the area. If you are willing to practice and live in the Chi/Midwest, then Illinois is definitely the way to go.

JenDarby wrote:TLS rankings say that obtaining residency at Illinois is definitely something you should NOT bank on, barring buying a house, marrying a resident or proving you're there for non-educational reasons.

I am considering UIUC with $$, but am factoring that I will be paying OOS tuition all three years into my decision.

I totally agree. It doesn't seem like residency is easy to obtain in Illinois. The numbers above were calculated using OOS tuition for all 3 years.

I'm finding comfort in the fact that I still have a few months to make my decision. A visit to Illinois in definitely in my future

OP - I would go with Illinois. Taking out loans is a hard thing to do, ite. However, this is your professional degree and the fact that Illinois will open so many more doors than St. Johns is reason enough to go ahead and attend.

I wasn't saying OP should retake or reapply, just that someone was going to come in and tell her she should. Calling out that particular type of response preemptively usually has the effect of deterring it completely, which was my intended result. Seems to have worked so far (although now that I explained it, the effect might be diminished).

Hopefully it was pointless as you say. But having been on these forums as long as I have, I somehow don't think so.

Last edited by Bosque on Sun Jan 09, 2011 11:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

TracyLynn wrote:Recently got accepted to Illinois with 15k/year (no stipulations, i'm out of state and will try to attain in-state but obviously it's not guaranteed). The school seems great, even though it wasn't a school I was attracted to initially.

Got accepted to St. John's with a full tuition scholarship (top 40% to maintain all, can maintain half if top 55%). This is an amazing offer and I feel like attending any other school from 50-100 and paying doesn't make much sense.

That's a pretty tough stipulation to keep, but honestly you could look at from the point of view that you might want to just cut your losses and walk away if you can't break top 40% at St. Johns. Look at it this way, the ability of the student body is going to be higher at Illinois so if you are below top 40% at St. Johns after a year you might have been bottom half or even bottom third at UIUC. That could be a tough place to be with 114k in debt.

Negotiate with St. John's to lower the stipulations to "good academic standing" if you can. Otherwise, maybe you can negotiate with Illinois to bump the scholarship up a bit. I think this comes down to where you want to practice/live if you can't get St. John's to remove the stip.

If the St. John's scholarship didn't have the stipulation I would feel more confident about taking their offer. I agree that I could always walk away if I didn't break top 40% there. I'm also going to try to negotiate with St. John's and Illinois once all my other offers come in.

If there weren't any stips on the St. John's would you choose St. John's no question? Or would Illinois still be a better offer? Thanks--

Hey all! Got my scholarship info from W+L, 20,000 per year with 3.15 stipulation. I'm thrilled with this offer, especially because it's more than I expected. First, can someone put a 3.15 stipulation in prospective for me? I haven't seen any information on the curve on their website and I want to know what I'm up against.

So now I have Illinois 15K (good standing), St. John's full ride (top 40%) and W+L 20K (3.15). Also waiting on a bunch of others as listed in the original post. From what I've read about W+L it seems like a great place, and I like the small atmosphere. Can't afford a visit to Illinois quite yet, but probably will be heading down to W+L soon.

TracyLynn wrote:Got accepted to St. John's with a full tuition scholarship (top 40% to maintain all, can maintain half if top 55%). This is an amazing offer and I feel like attending any other school from 50-100 and paying doesn't make much sense.

I feel like it's going to come down to Illinois/St. John's. I know I have a lot of other schools, but I doubt I'm going to receive any other full rides.

Is Illinois worth all the extra cash? Is St. John's foolish due to stipulations/NYC's saturated market? Thanks in advance.

YES TO BOLD. It is stupid. First of all, St. Johns and UIUC BOTH put all scholarship and stipulations kids in the same section 1L year. Meaning that you are not competing against the average joe of your class, only the ones deemed the desirable candidates. Half of the scholarship kids will lose their scholarship completely the first year, and if they carry on will get the honor of being below median despite being stellar students with lots of promise (compared to the average students).

And FYI, most, if not all law schools which have scholarships with stipulations put scholarship kids in the same class to try and get the scholarship money freed up as soon as possible. It's a despicable farce of an enticement which really shows the lack of faith law schools place in their own grads. It's a stacked deck.

Secondly, in NYC Saint John's is considered TTT. Plain and simple. Go to New York and you will understand all too well how much of a social club the legal field really is.

TracyLynn wrote:Got accepted to St. John's with a full tuition scholarship (top 40% to maintain all, can maintain half if top 55%). This is an amazing offer and I feel like attending any other school from 50-100 and paying doesn't make much sense.

I feel like it's going to come down to Illinois/St. John's. I know I have a lot of other schools, but I doubt I'm going to receive any other full rides.

Is Illinois worth all the extra cash? Is St. John's foolish due to stipulations/NYC's saturated market? Thanks in advance.

YES TO BOLD. It is stupid. First of all, St. Johns and UIUC BOTH put all scholarship and stipulations kids in the same section 1L year. Meaning that you are not competing against the average joe of your class, only the ones deemed the desirable candidates. Half of the scholarship kids will lose their scholarship completely the first year, and if they carry on will get the honor of being below median despite being stellar students with lots of promise (compared to the average students).

And FYI, most, if not all law schools which have scholarships with stipulations put scholarship kids in the same class to try and get the scholarship money freed up as soon as possible. It's a despicable farce of an enticement which really shows the lack of faith law schools place in their own grads. It's a stacked deck.

Secondly, in NYC Saint John's is considered TTT. Plain and simple. Go to New York and you will understand all too well how much of a social club the legal field really is.

UIUC doesn't have stipulations for their scholarships. I stopped reading there.

TracyLynn wrote:Hey all! Got my scholarship info from W+L, 20,000 per year with 3.15 stipulation. I'm thrilled with this offer, especially because it's more than I expected. First, can someone put a 3.15 stipulation in prospective for me? I haven't seen any information on the curve on their website and I want to know what I'm up against.

So now I have Illinois 15K (good standing), St. John's full ride (top 40%) and W+L 20K (3.15). Also waiting on a bunch of others as listed in the original post. From what I've read about W+L it seems like a great place, and I like the small atmosphere. Can't afford a visit to Illinois quite yet, but probably will be heading down to W+L soon.

Thanks in advance!

I really appreciate everyone's input regarding St. Johns (full ride top 40%), Illinois (15k good standing). I did get my offer from W+L which is 20000 with a 3.15. The dean of admissions at W+L told me that approx 70% of their students achieve over a 3.15 with the curve being a 3.3.